


first, last, and only

by abeaufortinnewyork



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, also, jealous Rey, the reylo dry humping kink is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 05:10:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeaufortinnewyork/pseuds/abeaufortinnewyork
Summary: Senator Ben Solo, of valuable Skywalker blood, is assigned a Jedi bodyguard who is sworn to protect him at all costs. But when he introduces a controversial bill in the Senate, and a beautiful fellow senator elects to co-sponsor it, Rey is surprised to find herself fending off advances of an entirely different nature than those for which her training prepared her.





	first, last, and only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyperphonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperphonic/gifts), [hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/gifts).



> um hi so this blew up and got way too long for tumblr.
> 
> also I know this is not how co-sponsoring works in the united states senate, puh-leeze do not come after me. this is the galactic senate and more importantly my fic therefore I MAKE THE RULES.
> 
> ok anyway enjoy!

The Senate is nearing the close of session when Chancellor Larstok, bleary-eyed and tired, introduces the last bill on his docket. “Senator Solo of Chandrila,” he begins, blinking, furrowing his brow now in worry as he scans the title, “proposes… a Bill to Deprive the League of Intragalactic Commerce of its Seat in the Galactic Senate.”

A sudden murmur passes through the chamber. 

With a sigh, the Chancellor turns his wary eyes on Ben and nods once, briefly. “Senator, you may have a minute to speak in defense of your bill, and to seek co-sponsors, without at least one of whom the bill will not come to a vote.”

Ben rises from his seat. “It is now two years since the League of Intragalactic Commerce was offered a seat in this Senate, and already we see their grip tightening on the trade mechanisms of our galaxy. We cannot let another commercial conglomerate bend galactic politics to its will. Surely we all know our history. Surely we remember how the Trade Federation wrought such havoc in the last days of the Republic.”

Another low roar of whispers, and Rey feels the Force prickle and shudder with flares of fear, uncertainty, even hatred. It cools her skin, sets her ill at ease, and her hand twitches instinctively to her lightsaber. 

“Senators!” Ben cries. “We have the power to legally and rightfully deprive the League of its seat, and to protect our beloved republic from corruption! And if I do not champion this effort, then I am not the grandson of Padme Amidala!” 

Rey groans, sinks backward into her seat. Ben, for better or worse, has always relished the drama of high politics. Now, perhaps, it’s for worse: in the ensuing uproar, she hears more boos and hisses than cheers of support.

“Thank you, Senator,” booms Larstok. “The Chancellor now recognizes Senator Harnyk of the League of Intragalactic Commerce.”

Ben sinks into his seat, releases a heavy sigh, and Rey leans forward to whisper in his ear. “You’re making my job harder, you know,” she says, almost harshly. 

He barely tilts his head, allowing her exacting eyes only a brief, angled glimpse of his dramatic profile. “I’m making both of our jobs harder,” he answers, his voice almost husky. “A small price to pay for saving the Republic.”

Rey scowls. 

“I say shame upon Senator Solo!” cries Harnyk, standing now, and pointing a trembling finger in Ben’s direction. “That I should have listen to the son of _Han Solo,_ an infamous smuggler, lecture me on just means of commercial exchange — it is _preposterous_! I will hear no more of it!”

A tremendous roar of supportive cheering seems to shake the very walls of the Senate Chamber. At length, amid the chaos, an elegant woman rises to claim the floor. “The Chancellor recognizes Senator Sandralla, Princess of Alchion,” comes Larstok’s voice above the fray. 

A sudden hush falls over the chamber as all eyes turn to the young, splendidly attired woman poised to address the Senate. “Senator Solo is right,” she begins, in a high, lilting voice. “My mother was murdered by the henchmen of Viceroy Gunray when she discovered his plan to invade Naboo and would have reported it to Queen Amidala. I have seen what political power vested in the hands of greedy trade magnates has done to the fabric of our Republic. Senator Solo, as he says, is not so much a prophet as a careful student of history. I ask his permission, and the permission of the Chancellor, to co-sponsor the bill.” 

“Granted of the Chancellor,” Larstok responds. “Senator Solo?”

Ben’s eyes are wide with wonder, and with gratitude. Rey studies him warily, feels something flip in her stomach. “Granted.”

 

After the session is adjourned, Senator Sandralla approaches Ben in the wide, arched corridor that leads from the Senate Chamber to the office wing. Rey’s eyes scan longingly, enviously over the rich velvet folds of her gown, the twinkling coronet lodged in her sun-blonde hair. “Senator,” she murmurs lowly, green eyes flashing beneath fast-fluttering lashes. “You were very brave to sponsor that bill.”

“And you very brave to support me,” Ben responds. “Thank you. I worried I wouldn’t even get a co-sponsor. The League’s grip is tight.”

“There are many who share your concern,” returns Senator Sandralla, again in a deep, almost purring tone, and Rey narrows her eyes. “But ahead of the vote, we will have to work to undermine the League’s more _indirect_ influence on our politics.”

Ben nods, sighs. “Yes,” he sighs, almost growls. “Half the Senate’s in bed with them. And the off-world banks are already bad enough—” Suddenly the words dry in his throat, and he bows his head. “I’m sorry. I won’t bore you with my rambling.”

“Don’t apologize for your passion, Senator,” she says quietly, reaching out to brush her fingers reassuringly against his forearm. “It might well save the Republic.”

At this Ben blushes bashfully, almost like a boy, and Rey outright scowls. 

“Perhaps tomorrow morning you could come to my office?” continues the senator. “We can begin to discuss a strategy there.”

“Excellent.” Ben, still red-cheeked, extends his hand, and Senator Sandralla, ever coy, allows her white fingers to fold delicately into his palm.  

As she turns to continue down the corridor, velvet train rushing elegantly along the polished floor, Rey turns to Ben, a tired critique on her tongue — _The eyes she was giving you, Force. Is this the back corner of a shady cantina or the Galactic Senate?_

But he speaks first, the wonder and gratitude she’d noticed in the Senate Chamber not yet seeped from his eyes. “What a brave woman,” he says, his eyes following her retreat.

Rey blinks. “Um, yes. Very brave,” she mutters in a rush. 

But there’s something in his gaze — something more than gratitude now, more than wonder: a tender sort of longing, soft and full of sighs — that tugs strangely at her chest. For a moment, fleeting and foolish, she wishes that his eyes would glint and blur and sing that way when he looks at her. 

 

The meeting with Senator Sandralla is early the next morning — _too_ early, really, and Rey finds herself yawning incessantly as she waits with Ben outside the other senator’s office. 

“Force, Rey,” he says quietly, licking his thumbs and smoothing her wisping hair delicately from her face. She’s come to expect this sort of intimacy from him — after all, they’ve known each other since they were children, when he would accompany his mother on visits to his uncle’s academy — but now it awakens a curious flutter in her heart. “You’re a mess.” 

“I didn’t sleep much last night,” she mumbles, turning her face down to hide her blush. 

Ben sighs as he adjusts the x-shaped folds of her robes. “Why?”

“I’m worried about the bill,” she says, somewhat disingenuously. “About you.” But she doesn’t really worry about him, not when she’s armed with his grandfather’s lightsaber and his uncle’s training to protect him. Physical, bodily threats to his person she can control and repulse accordingly. Romantic, sexual advances are another matter entirely. “It’s dangerous,” she continues, clearing her throat, “sticking your head out like that.”

Ben’s hands fall from her robes. “Trust me,” he says firmly. “Don’t I trust you?”

“Of course you do,” she responds. “It’s not just the bill, though; it’s—”

But all at once the door opens to reveal Senator Sandralla, perched on the threshold like some exotic doll, glittering in a magnificent array of red satin and brocade. The gown’s neckline cuts low across her chest, revealing the supple slope of her breasts. “Senator Solo,” she says, all velveteen voice and warm, green-glowing eyes. Her gaze cools disdainfully when it falls to his companion. “And… a Jedi.”

Rey chews her lip.

“Rey is my personal guard,” Ben explains, his eyes dipping tellingly to drink in the sight of the senator’s fair, exposed skin. “She — she trained under my uncle, and is a sworn knight of the Jedi Order. I trust her with my life.”

The senator purses her lips, and can’t resist another disdainful crawl of her eyes over Rey’s petite figure. “Very well. Please, come in.”  
The office is magnificent, befitting a princess, and appointed with sleek silver furnishings and a balcony that towers over the sprawling metropolis of Hanna City. The senator princess sits at her desk, delicately adjusting the blond braids that frame her ears. “Welcome, Senator,” she murmurs, her sultry velvet tone wrapping sensually around each word. “We have much to discuss.”

Rey, meanwhile, seats herself in the corner, lightsaber clutched in her lap.

“The first order of business,” Ben begins shortly, surprising the senator with his pointed address, “is the debate. We’ll need to ensure that we have at least a third of our would-be majority vocally supporting us.”

“Right,” she answers, adjusting. “Let’s draw up a list of sure things. We can work on the rest behind the scenes.”

As they drift into the minutiae of senatorial politics, Rey feels her eyelids grow heavy, and she very nearly nods off to sleep. Only at the end of their conversation, when both stand to part ways, and Senator Sandralla brushes forward to whisper in his ear, do Rey’s senses flare again in the Force.    

“I thought I’d invite you to a dinner at my apartment,” says the senator quietly, no doubt thinking herself out of Rey’s hearing. “On the eve of the debate, with several other senators, of course. It will give us a chance to discuss this matter more… privately." 

Rey steps forward. “A dinner?”

“Yes,” says the senator, voice dripping with contempt. “It’s not uncommon among the delegates to the Senate.”

“I’m aware,” Rey bites back. “But I’m concerned about security.”

Sandralla’s eyes, so soft and melting before Ben, drag almost cruelly up and down Rey’s figure. “I’m sure you are,” she murmurs over a thinly disguised laugh.

“Anyway,” Ben says loudly, grabbing Rey’s arm to tug her away. “I’ll be there, Senator. Thank you for the invitation. I look forward to it.” 

The moment they’re out the door, he drives her against the chrome-paneled wall of the corridor, eyes boring hotly into hers. “What was that?”

“Like I said,” she hisses. “I’m concerned about security.”

“Did my uncle teach you nothing?” he grumbles, repelling from the wall. “Rey, even I know that the Jedi are meant to keep the peace, not to lash out like little girls at women they don’t like!”

This she cannot bide. All at once, and in a brilliant flash of blue, she ignites his grandfather’s saber and draws it close to his face. “Don’t you dare call me a little girl, Ben Solo,” she hisses. “For your own sake. Your life is in my hands, now and always.” 

Slowly, eyes still drowned in hers, he raises his hand to cover her quivering fingers on the saber’s hilt. “I know,” he answers quietly, and as his breathing slows, the other hand moves to the small of her back, drags her against his chest. The deactivated lightsaber clatters to the floor. “I know.”

 

To no one’s surprise, Rey still insists on accompanying him to the dinner.

“Will you draw a saber on anyone tonight, Mistress Rey?” he asks when she appears at his door, ready to escort him.

“If I have to,” she answers brusquely, slipping past him into the room. Her chest brushes against his, and she’s glad he isn’t stronger in the Force, glad he can’t feel the waves of heat that roll off of her into the pulsing energy field around them. 

“You shouldn’t even come,” he sighs as he pins his cloak and crosses to the landing deck. “It’s a private dinner, with only a few senators — and all of them friendly to my cause.”

“So you _think_.”

He laughs shortly. “I don’t think Senator Sandralla is plotting against me.”

Rey frowns. “Don’t be ridiculous. This bill is divisive. You have more enemies than you think.”  

“If you say so,” he sighs dismissively, ushering her into his airspeeder. “But please — behave.”

Senator Sandralla’s apartment is located in the wealthiest quarter of the city, close to Ben’s but far enough for a strange tension to build in the airspeeder on the way there. There’s a desperation to the way Rey’s fingers curl around her lightsaber, a strange whine in the Force as it courses between them. She remembers the press of his hand against her back, the soft play of his breath against her neck.

They arrive shortly at Senator Sandralla’s landing deck, which is sternly patrolled by two white-clad guards. A butler greets them, helping Ben gingerly out the airspeeder door with a cordial, “Welcome, Senator Solo.” Rey receives neither help nor greeting, and is left to follow them, half in resentment, half in wonder, into the magnificent foyer of the senator’s apartment.

There she greets them, dressed in a silken white gown that clings to the supple curves of her body, and dips low across the heave of her breast. “Senator!” she beams, moving forward to embrace him, even daring to kiss his suddenly-red cheek. “What a pleasure to welcome you to my home.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Ben answers.

But now she pauses, glances sharply over his shoulder. Her lips curl. “Is it really necessary that your bodyguard follow you _everywhere_ , Senator?”

“Senator Solo is the only grandson of Anakin Skywalker,” Rey retorts sharply, cheeks heating. “It is _absolutely_ necessary that I afford him constant protection.”

Senator Sandralla smirks, flashes Ben a glittering-eyed, almost conspiratorial glance. “She’s a feisty one, your Jedi.”

Ben smiles in something like pride, but Rey is incensed. “I’m only doing my duty, Senator,” she snaps. Now her cheeks are afire, and her chest tight with fury. “Can you do yours?”

“My duty—!”

“Is to bring this bill to a vote, not to berate the guardians of peace and justice who have been welcomed in the halls of the Senate for a thousand years!”

Ben’s answering voice is firm, unforgiving in a way Rey hardly recognizes. “That’s enough,” he bites out, moving swiftly forward, as if to chastise her. “I don’t remember insolence having a place in the Jedi code.” And as he hovers over her, chest heaving, eyes blazing with fury, she realizes with a sudden dread how quickly her eyes are drawn to his moist, pink lips, and how badly she wants even now to kiss them. 

“I thought I told you to behave,” he says lowly, dipping his head to hiss into her ear.

“I will if you will,” she returns.

When she steps back, she says loudly, in performed, mock repentance, “I’m sorry, Senator.”

And for a long, charged moment his gaze is locked with hers.

“It’s I who should apologize,” Ben sighs at last, turning to Senator Sandralla. “To you. On _her_ behalf.”

Sandralla smirks. “It’s no matter. Please, come in.”

Rey fumes. Around her, the Force crackles with a raw, untamed fury. It would be easy, she thinks, to play tricks. But Master Skywalker’s maxims of truth and justice ring in her mind, albeit dimly, and she holds her temper. 

“I’m so sorry, Senator, but several of our other guests cancelled,” explains Senator Sandralla as they enter the dining room. “It will just be you and I for dinner, I’m afraid.”

“No problem at all,” Ben answers warmly.

“No problem—?” Rey starts, furious again.

“Don’t make me call my uncle to replace you,” Ben snaps, turning on her with an accusatory finger raised. “If you can’t _do your duty_ , I’ll require another guard.”

She glares at him and sits at the table, willing herself into silence, reaching out to the Force to calm her, set her soul at peace.

Still it churns all throughout dinner, as Senator Sandralla brushes her ringed fingers against Ben’s arm, speaks to him in hushed, lover’s tones, laughs a pearly laugh whenever he digresses into a story about his schooldays, or his famous family, or the backstreets of Hanna City.

By the time dinner is over, any semblance of peace in Rey’s soul has slipped away, and she and Ben stalk toward their airspeeder in a frenzied, furious silence. It carries over into the ride back, when the cramped confines of the airspeeder’s backseat only heighten the strange energy that thickens the space between them. 

“Was that really necessary?” Ben says at last, and his tone is sharp, cutting. He’s drunk. His Force signature is blurred at the edges, dull and thick. But then she’s not entirely clear-headed, either. 

“She was being ridiculous,” Rey answers, equally piqued. 

“Ridiculous how?” 

“Do you really believe that all four other guests cancelled?” she snaps, turning to face him. “And that she would wear that — that _thing_ — to just any strategy consultation?”

“If you actually read any of the books I’ve given you,” he blusters, turning too now and snarling, “you’d know that the dress customs of her planet are quite different from Chandrila’s!”

“There is such a thing as time and place, you know,” she spits back. “Different dress customs or no, she was wearing a _nightdress_ to dinner tonight!”

Suddenly a strange, new glint comes to his eye. “Why do you think that was?”

“I—I don’t know,” she sputters, flustered. “

“I think you do.” His throat bobs. “And I think…” he continues, the words slurred with drink, “that you were jealous.”

“Jealous?” For the briefest, most fleeting of moments, she reads the glint in his eye as desire, and thinks, desperately and fervently, that it really could be. Her chest aches at the thought, and a foreign rush of heat pools in her abdomen.

“You thought that I wanted her. And that made you very”—here he hooks a finger daringly under her chin, sets her heart to thundering against her ribs—“ _very_ upset.”

“It didn’t,” she sneers, angling her chin backwards. But her pride is slippery in her hands, and she’s losing her grip. Even the Force eludes her.

“It did.” At last he reaches for her waist, dragging her swiftly and inelegantly onto his lap. Her thighs move almost on instinct to bracket his, and for a moment they are both still, heavy breaths mingling in the warm air between them. It is impossible, utterly impossible, that a senator and his Jedi bodyguard should find themselves like this—and yet. _And yet._

“What are you doing?” she breathes.

For a long, silent, aching moment he says nothing. “You thought that I wanted her,” he repeats, his voice scraping just above a whisper. His fingers clench around her hips, and he forces them down against his, grinding. “Do you still think that?”

“B— _Ben,_ ” she chokes out, gasping at the friction, at how _hard_ he is already. At the academy she had trained alongside boys, later young men burgeoning rudely into adulthood, and over the years had learned enough, in whispered confessions behind Luke’s back and red-cheeked moments of shame and ill timing, to know that the hardness now pressing between her thighs is her doing, that he _wants_ her.  

“Force, Rey,” he says, leaning forward to press an open-mouthed kiss to her breastbone. “You — you were the only one I ever wanted. And the only one I couldn’t _kriffing_ have.”

 _You can’t have me_ , she should say. _I swore an oath._ But when his hips buck up into hers, and the outline of his erection drags against the fast-dampening spot between her thighs, her thoughts blur together, and all she can say — pant, really — is, “Ben. Ben, _please—_ ”

He rocks his hips, she hers, and they both cry out at the sensation. Raw, hissing tendrils of pleasure spike up her spine, and already she feels so good, so impossibly good, that her arms go limp around his shoulders. 

One hand moves to the back of her neck, splayed wide across the taut thicket of muscle and tendon over her spine. “The things I’ve dreamed of doing to you…” he mutters, leaning into her, tongue laving incessantly at the sweat-slicked skin of her throat.

“Tell me,” she gasps, desperate, breathless.

For a moment he withdraws from her neck, eyes hooded and bleary, and studies her. 

“Tell me,” she repeats, her breath hitching as his hips set a more frenzied pace. “I want to know.”

His hands move down from her hips to palm her ass. “So many times… when we were alone in my office…” He groans. “Force, I wanted to lean you over my desk and fuck you until you couldn’t walk straight.”

The image sends a rush of heat to her core. It’s a new, strange, thrilling heat: charged and coursing, like a current. And she’d by lying if she said she hadn’t imagined it too. Those evenings when the dying sunlight streamed through the tall glass windows of his office, threading his hair with the orange glow of sunset, reflecting in his eyes as he glanced up from his work to tease her about refusing to carry her own lightsaber, or the stern, steeled expression she wore when she followed him through the halls of the Senate. There was something in the way his broad shoulders hunched over his work that made her imagine them hunched over _her_. 

“What else?” she presses, gasping when his face descends to her chest, and he mouths at her breasts through the coarse fabric of her robes. 

“The other night I dreamt I got you off in our pod, in front of the whole Senate,” he murmurs, hands flexing, squeezing at her rear. “Your hot little cunt clenching around my fingers, you screaming my name through the Force, and all while… kriffing… Garik Harnyk droned on about mining in the Anoat Sector.”

It’s too much. “Ben, I want—”

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he gasps against her jaw, teeth nipping at the skin there. “Tell me what you want. You want me to touch you?”

“P— _please_ ,” she begs, close to tears. The thin fabric of her underwear is soaked through, and her wetness slicks her thighs now, seeps through the rough fabric of her robes. With only so wet and pliable a layer between them, she feels every movement of his hips, every brush of his cock against her aching, tender core, to the bone.   

His hands have just hiked up her robes, just begun to map the soft, trembling skin of her thighs, when the shuttle droid announces from the front seat: _Senator Solo, we’ve arrived._

“Kriff,” he hisses.

“Tell him to do another lap around the block,” she begs. “Please.” 

“I can’t,” he answers. “Luke… he’s waiting for you.”

“But I need— I need to—”

He can’t help himself. “You need to come?” he whispers, his lips brushing softly, tantalizingly, against the lobe of her ear.

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I need to come,” she cries. And she does. Stars, she needs it like she needs _air._ The fire in her belly is building, burning, and so desperately close to leaking out of every pore, bursting into the open air and swallowing both of them whole. It was never like this, even when she first discovered herself, and spent night after night alone and furiously rubbing in her bunk. Then it felt rough, impersonal, even shameful. But this — this is something new. Something drenched in liquid fire, warm and alive. 

“Kriff, Ben,” she gasps, collapsing against his shoulder. “I need — I need you to make me come.”

Hardly have the words left her mouth when his fingers find her, curling inside of her so easily that he quickly adds a third. The sensation steals her breath. The fire burns hotter, and her vision starts to blur, and she’s closer now, even closer as his thumb seeks and finds her clit.

But the droid grows impatient. _Senator Solo!_ it repeats sharply. _I must return Mistress Rey to the Jedi temple before curfew._

“That’s enough, G-21T,” Ben barks. “She’s almost there.” 

When he turns his lips into her neck, his voice softens, and he whispers warmly, “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”  
But she has no words to answer him. All she can do is moan into his shoulder as the wave is nearly crested — almost — _yes,_ and a whole galaxy shatters inside of her, spills onto his fingers.

As she slumps, boneless, off of Ben’s lap and against the seat, the night cityscape of Hanna City blurs and swims before her eyes. “That’s my girl,” he whispers, kissing her forehead. 

“Ben…”

He sucks his fingers into his mouth. “Next time,” he murmurs, drawing them out with a sharp popping sound, “I’ll taste you on my tongue.”

“Now,” she gasps, not even sure what he _means_ , but desperate for his hands on her body, his breath on her throat, his fingers inside of her, his thumb rubbing her clit — anything, _anything_ but his leaving.

“No,” he slurs, stumbling out onto the landing deck and leaning against the speeder for support. “You have to go.”

As she sighs in distress, curling into the seat, Rey succumbs to a momentary panic and gasps, “The — the droid.”

“It’s a low-intelligence model,” Ben answers, flicking his wrist lazily. “It has no idea what just happened.”

The words come suddenly to her lips, an unthinking confession: “What _did_ just happen?”

He blinks, as if the question had taken him aback, as if he hadn’t even though to consider it before. But before he can answer, the speeder door zips shut, and the vehicle shoots off into the night, leaving Senator Ben Solo alone and confused on the edge of his landing deck.

 

The next morning she meets him in the grand corridor of the senate building, chin held high, robes crossed up to her neck. _I am an ascetic, virginal knight of an ancient religious order_ , she had told her reflection in the mirror that morning. _And I will act like one._ “Senator Solo,” she says crisply, following custom with a shallow bow.

With a gentle smirk, he returns the greeting. “Mistress Rey.” 

They turn and start together down the hall. “Last night,” Rey begins, quickly, lowly, before he can say a word. “It was a mistake.”

“Oh?” He faces her, eyebrows arched almost challengingly, the ghost of a laugh haunting his lips. “So it wasn’t a dream, then.”

“It was a mistake,” she repeats, injecting as strong and ringing a note of finality into the words as she can muster.

“I see.”

For several long, aching moments they walk in silence. Rey’s hands ball to fists at her side, and if it weren’t for the fact that the hall was crawling with senators and their aides, with watching and judging and knowing eyes, she would scream at him. Force, she would bring all the fury of the stars down onto his head for cursing her like this. For making her feel what she was sworn never to feel.

“Come with me,” he murmurs suddenly, grabbing her arm and edging off to the side of the hall, where he opens a hidden door and slips inside, Rey following close behind him.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, knowing exactly what he’s doing, and swallowing her unease as he drags her down darkened row after darkened row of shelves.

At last he ushers her into another room, this one much smaller, still more dimly lit and cramped. “How could you say it was a mistake?” he says lowly, closing the door and whirling about to face her.

“You know,” she answers, her voice lower still. “You know exactly.”

“Don’t you remember?” he says, moving closer. 

“I’ve tried to forget.”

“Ah,” he sighs. “Because you _do_ remember. You remember how good it felt.”

Rey closes her eyes, clenches her thighs together in vain. “Ben…”

“You remember how my fingers felt inside of you,” he continues, and his voice is low, husky, thrumming powerfully with something like triumph. “You remember how my name tasted on your lips when you came.”

“Ben, please. I… I can’t,” she whispers, swallowing. “I’m… a Jedi.”

To this he says nothing, only steps closer. “You’re trembling,” he says quietly, tenderly, his lips devastatingly close now, close enough to kiss.

“I’m not trembling,” she lies, as her whole body quivers in anticipation. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmurs. “I feel it, too.”

And then his mouth descends to hers, the soft, supple flesh molding around the curve of her lower lip. It’s everything she imagined, everything she dreamed, everything she hoped, even when her roaring, dreaming, blazing heart was buried in her subconscious, tucked away beneath a fragile shell of Jedi peace and tranquility. 

Ben is the first man to kiss her, and as his tongue glides across the seam of her lips, seeking entry, she yields with a low moan, and knows he’ll be the last. 

The kiss drags into the foothills of forever, until Rey feels her lips numbing and her legs shaking and her chest aching so heavily that she can’t quite breathe. But from the dim, shifting fogs of her conscious at last comes a single, striking thought.

“Ben,” she gasps, wrenching herself free. “The debate.”

“The debate?” He blinks, gasps. “Kriff. The debate. Stars, if it weren’t for the _kriffing_ debate, I’d—”

“After,” she promises, thrilled. 

When they enter their pod, Rey’s cheeks are still flushed with heat, and Ben’s full lips still swollen from their kiss. But Senator Sandralla, rising from her seat at their entrance, makes no indication of having noticed anything awry. 

“Senator Solo,” she murmurs.

“Senator Sandralla,” Ben returns briskly, aloof and cordial. With a sharp pivot, he conveys Rey to a narrow bench, bids her sit at his side.

“I thought that seat was reserved for your co-sponsor,” says Senator Sandralla curtly.

“It’s an important day,” he says, with a shallow nod of halfhearted acknowledgement. “Security will have to be…”—his hand settles on her thigh, squeezes—“tight.”

Rey bites her tongue. 

“This session of the Senate of the New Republic is hereby called to order,” booms the Chancellor’s voice through the cavernous, echoing hall. “Today this Senate will hear debate on the bill proposed by Senator Ben Solo of Chandrila, namely A Bill to Deprive the League of Intragalactic Commerce of its Seat in the Galactic Senate. Senator Solo, you may have the floor for an opening speech of no more than one minute, to be duly answered by an opening speech of Senator Harnyk. The Chancellor now recognizes Senator Solo of Chandrila.” 

Ben rises swiftly and confidently from his seat, his robes billowing around his ankles. “Senators,” he begins, as the pod moves forward into the center of the Chamber. “I will never, it seems, be able to escape the legacy of my family. I am proud of my maternal grandmother, Senator Amidala, who fought valiantly — and, as history tells us, in vain — against the rising tide of tyranny in the last Republic. I am proud of my mother, Senator Organa, who as a princess of Alderaan led the Rebel Alliance against the supremacy of Emperor Palpatine and his legions of destruction. It would seem that resistance to tyranny, and, in turn, respect for the rule of law, runs in my blood. But as Senator Harnyk reminded us several days ago, I am also the son of a famous smuggler, who had as little regard for economic order and stability as my maternal grandfather did for liberty and justice. So I have a tyrant’s and a scoundrel’s blood, too. What is to be done?”

The chamber is utterly silent. Even Rey, whose intellect was never much suited to politics, is held in rapt attention, eyes fixed on Ben’s proud, upright form and chest swelling with pride. “But I tell you this, senators!” he cries. “More than anything I am a son of the Republic! I was born in this very city on the day that the Empire was finally brought to its knees and submitted to the democratic will of the long-oppressed peoples of this galaxy! My blood and my birth have taught me what a precious and tenuous thing the Republic is. Let us protect it! Let us be fierce and courageous in the face of those who would cripple it! I look for your support in this.”

As he takes his seat beside Rey, Senator Sandralla gives an approving nod, green eyes glinting with the same seductive spark. But the whole Senate Chamber has erupted into applause, and Ben’s cheeks are red with pride, and he wouldn’t have noticed her if she’d been stark naked at his feet.

“Ben,” Rey whispers, daring to touch his arm. “That was…”

“Brilliant? It really was,” he answers quietly, smirking. “In fact, I think… that I’d like to celebrate.” Now his hand inches across her lap, under the folds of her robes, toward her center, which had already begun traitorously to heat as she watched him tower over the Senate. 

Chancellor Larstok announces Senator Harnyk, and the Senate Chamber quiets, turns its attention to the League’s pod. Rey, for her part, drops her eyes to her lap, seizes Ben’s wrist in one hand. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh, come on, sweetheart,” he whispers, as his fingers brush against the bare skin of her thigh. “Let’s make another of my dreams come true.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the super extra™ speeches, I really can't help myself


End file.
